profile
03-30-2008, 06:09 AM
#21
Senior Member
RACING JUNKIE
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Standing right behind you
Posts: 1,151
A couple Sunday morning thoughts
Couple comments.
Regarding profile info, its a good idea that the AUCTION SITE requires, yet scamming is surging on that venue. Really if you conjure up a fake identity its just a little extra work on the bad guys, and computers make short work of it.
The only way that you avoid the scams is to be vigilant. Require US Postal money orders or a wire of funds to a clearing account, engage a certified inspector to look at a car if its a long distance buy, get photos of a trade have the trade inspected and plan on meeting half way, and finally if it smells its probably rotten.
I agree a profile is a good thing, but if you really want to stop a percentage of the scammers, make sales have a percentage based cost and require a credit card-you just carved a bunch out and sent them elsewhere-want to get their attention, hit them in the wallet.
Of course you could make this a pay to join effective some prospective date while grandfathering existing members. If the bad guys have to pay, some will move on.
BTW, just a random thought on name calling and mudslinging-why is it necessary that some name call on this board? I simply do not understand that.
Later
Regarding profile info, its a good idea that the AUCTION SITE requires, yet scamming is surging on that venue. Really if you conjure up a fake identity its just a little extra work on the bad guys, and computers make short work of it.
The only way that you avoid the scams is to be vigilant. Require US Postal money orders or a wire of funds to a clearing account, engage a certified inspector to look at a car if its a long distance buy, get photos of a trade have the trade inspected and plan on meeting half way, and finally if it smells its probably rotten.
I agree a profile is a good thing, but if you really want to stop a percentage of the scammers, make sales have a percentage based cost and require a credit card-you just carved a bunch out and sent them elsewhere-want to get their attention, hit them in the wallet.
Of course you could make this a pay to join effective some prospective date while grandfathering existing members. If the bad guys have to pay, some will move on.
BTW, just a random thought on name calling and mudslinging-why is it necessary that some name call on this board? I simply do not understand that.
Later
08-25-2010, 08:01 AM
#24
Member
CRAFTSMAN
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: North Adams MA
Posts: 57
hello everyone
You guys do bring up a good point with the profiles, we struggled with this a long time ago, so let me give you some history behind this so you can see where we are now and how we got there.
As an open classified format we don't have a pinpointed buyer and seller to the site on any one given item. It's pretty much your local newspaper classified listing service, where someone calls, gives credit card info and posts an ad. There is no way for anyone to find out who really is on the other end or if that person is really going to scam someone.
Our site is a little different because we are free to people who want to use it for free, so we don't even get someone to call us or to give us any kind of payment, but we still have the same issues as the newspaper when it comes to finding out what someone is going to do on the other end.
We do not track sales so there is no way of knowing what was happening but because the Honor Payments were being made we knew that people were still successful in selling items long before any profiles were ever attached. But we still felt the site needed more, out came social networking and we made the RaceSpace for people who wanted to know more about the other person.
We cannot make the profiles mandatory because it comes with opening yourself up to a public forum even if you don't want to but still are a good sales person and are doing the right thing but want to remain anonymous.
We could never begin to find out if what people are writing is legit even if we did make it mandatory. There are days on our site that we are getting over 1000 new people coming to the site making accounts, and there is no way of finding out who they are before they post an item.
As for the scammers, its difficult for us to take someones word for it as someone may be doing the right thing and someone just has a beef against someone and wants to complain about that person for no reason.
Unfortunately there is no way for you to know what is going to happen, there are some going points in this thread as to how to protect yourself but unfortunately nothing is fool proof. A good person can turn bad at a minutes notice, and the other way around. Everyone is different and we can only try to introduce the buyer and seller together, after that our hands are tied when it comes to the transaction.
As an open classified format we don't have a pinpointed buyer and seller to the site on any one given item. It's pretty much your local newspaper classified listing service, where someone calls, gives credit card info and posts an ad. There is no way for anyone to find out who really is on the other end or if that person is really going to scam someone.
Our site is a little different because we are free to people who want to use it for free, so we don't even get someone to call us or to give us any kind of payment, but we still have the same issues as the newspaper when it comes to finding out what someone is going to do on the other end.
We do not track sales so there is no way of knowing what was happening but because the Honor Payments were being made we knew that people were still successful in selling items long before any profiles were ever attached. But we still felt the site needed more, out came social networking and we made the RaceSpace for people who wanted to know more about the other person.
We cannot make the profiles mandatory because it comes with opening yourself up to a public forum even if you don't want to but still are a good sales person and are doing the right thing but want to remain anonymous.
We could never begin to find out if what people are writing is legit even if we did make it mandatory. There are days on our site that we are getting over 1000 new people coming to the site making accounts, and there is no way of finding out who they are before they post an item.
As for the scammers, its difficult for us to take someones word for it as someone may be doing the right thing and someone just has a beef against someone and wants to complain about that person for no reason.
Unfortunately there is no way for you to know what is going to happen, there are some going points in this thread as to how to protect yourself but unfortunately nothing is fool proof. A good person can turn bad at a minutes notice, and the other way around. Everyone is different and we can only try to introduce the buyer and seller together, after that our hands are tied when it comes to the transaction.
08-25-2010, 10:36 AM
#25
Senior Member
RACING JUNKIE
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Fountain,MICHIGAN
Posts: 856
Profiles
I Have Gave my Veiws on this before and will Not go into it again!
BUT...........
I Find Ad after Ad on the Classifieds,that Have NO PHONE #'s for a Contact?
Do These People Realy think that someone is Going to Buy there Stuff if they are Not even WILLIN to Post a PHONE #?WAKE UP....This is the Year 2010.And if you NIEVE Enough to think that just because you DO NOT Post Your # that you are SAFE from being FOUND?
If thats the Case?How many MILES of that BRIDGE do you Want to Buy?
Later
G :?
BUT...........
I Find Ad after Ad on the Classifieds,that Have NO PHONE #'s for a Contact?
Do These People Realy think that someone is Going to Buy there Stuff if they are Not even WILLIN to Post a PHONE #?WAKE UP....This is the Year 2010.And if you NIEVE Enough to think that just because you DO NOT Post Your # that you are SAFE from being FOUND?
If thats the Case?How many MILES of that BRIDGE do you Want to Buy?
Later
G :?
08-25-2010, 10:43 AM
#26
Moderator
RACING JUNKIE
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 4,042
I have also noticed lately that I am getting a ton more friend request since the albums were made "private". I have a lot of people with profiles but nothing in them asking for friend requests. My rule is if the person has no info/photos in their profile, I am not going to make them my friend!
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Chris
As close to "Normal" as I can get...
Chris
As close to "Normal" as I can get...
